Warface, the online shooter from Crytek that heralds the beginning of the developer's free-to-play future, has had its western release date narrowed down to this coming winter.

"It depends on how closed beta goes, but we're looking for winter this year," Crytek's Cevat Yerli told Eurogamer in Cologne's Gamescom. "Depending on how closed beta goes it could be December or January, but it'll be winter."

Warface is a free-to-play shooter that's being developer by Crytek's Kiev outfit, and it's already proved popular in other territories. "We have over 3 million registered players in Russia," Yerli said. "In Russia it beat World of Tanks and all those games, which is quite an achievement. In Europe and US we already have 500,000 subscriptions to the closed beta. That's the kind of number you normally get in an open beta, not a closed one."

The western release of Warface is coming through a partnership with Trion World, the developer of Rift.

Cevat Yerli also revealed that Crytek's exploring a future console release for the game. "We have been talking to console manufacturers, to Sony and Microsoft in particular, about free-to-play games," Yerli said. "A couple of years ago they weren't interested in free-to-play games, and they didn't have the right structure there - which is fine because they were busy. But there was no home for Warface on console."

"Now the interest in Warface is quite high, and it could be an option. We haven't made final decisions, but for me if the current gen or any other console embraces free-to-play and can run Warface, then I'm happy for it to be there."

Digital Foundry recently inspected Warface and came away impressed with what they saw - a free-to-play game with genuine AAA production values.